Social psychologists have traditionally been concerned with problems of social conflict, power, influence, and persuasion. Yet, when one looks for systematic theory and evidence regarding the determinants of behavioral compliance to rules, norms, or influence attempts, few prescriptions can be garnered by the practical man of affairs for developing policy in matters of law and order. In a day when shouts of black power, student protests, and antiwar demonstrations reverberate through the legitimate institutions of the country and when violence commissions report the degree of disorder existing in the urban centers of America, lack of social scientific evidence upon which to base policy is a disquieting comment upon the relevance of social scientific research.

The belief that serious or acute mental problems are only prevalent in urbanized and technologically advanced societies and absent in preindustrial, largely rural, African societies is an exaggeration (Milner, 1966). Mental disorder, however, is not a major concern of East African legal systems. The social fabric in East African societies is still closely knit and thus provides ways to treat or take care of the deviants. Large-scale industrial development, which enhances the likelihood of behavioral aberrations in the industrialized societies of Europe and America, has not yet taken place, and thus the peasants of East Africa have been spared its ill effects.

The considerable literature on Eskimo law is replete with contradictory descriptions of matters such as the functions of leadership, the imposition of sanctions, the involvement of the community as a whole in juridical matters, and the presence or absence of specific methods of conflict resolution. Rather than accuse certain ethnographers of error, I would judge that all the well-known accounts are substantially accurate.

In 1965 the Minnesota legislature created the office of State Public Defender and authorized the establishment of defender systems in the ten judicial districts which comprise the state judicial system. District systems were to be established upon decision of the district judges for each given district. The period from 1966 through 1967 saw the expansion of the system from two original districts to six additional judicial districts. This study describes and explains the effects of the introduction of this indigent defense system upon the criminal law process in the state of Minnesota. What follows essentially focuses on a problem of institutionalization, i.e., the transformation of an idea or concept into a working institution and its subsequent manifest or latent consequences. (On this problem, see Warriner [1962] and Eisenstadt [1957].) The primary task of this study is the determination of the changes effected by the introduction of the system upon the variables by which the criminal law process is statistically monitored. The replacement of the appointive counsel system by the public defender system assumes a change in the operative goals of the defense system. The statistics which monitor the criminal law process are analyzed for changes which indicate a modification in those operative goals. Particular emphasis is placed on the discovery of trends in the process variables which indicate goals pointing to a maximization of due process values. We also undertake a comparative analysis which emphasizes differentiation congruent with increasing experience under the public defender system. Finally, the study analyzes reaction to the system on the part of personnel involved in the adversary process affecting indigent accused.

Popular compliance with prescribed patterns of behavior is the fundamental constraint on social disruption. Even the effectiveness of control by legal sanctions depends on the public's acceptance of their use by authorities. Inquiry into the sources of popular adherence to norms conducive to compliance with authorities has been an aspect of socialization research. This essay comments on political science research on socialization, and points out how it differs from the research reported by psychologist Joseph Adelson and his associates (1970) in this journal and in a previous study (1966). The socialization studies are compared in order to determine their utility for discerning the sources of compliant behavior.

That the American culture contains criminogenic elements leading to blue-collar crime, white-collar crime and noncriminal exploitation has been recognized by sociologists. Sutherland (1949: 9) defined a white-collar crime as one “committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his legitimate occupation.” White-collar crime included such acts as false and deceptive advertising, mislabeling of goods, price fixing, selling adulterated goods, violating weights and measures statutes, performing illegal operations (by doctors), fee-splitting (by lawyers), and others. Thus crime could no longer be defined solely as the illegal activity of blue-collar, low-class and pathological persons, but extended to all classes, with the prestige group at the top setting a pattern of lawlessness reflected and emulated by subgroups.

This paper presents a discussion of the revitalization processes of the peace pact system of intervillage relations among the Kalinga mountaineers of northern Luzon by means of celebrations given by the system's key personnel, the peace pact holders. Revitalization here refers on the one hand to the ways in which these celebrations regenerate support for the peace pact system, reinforce obedience to peace pact law, and strengthen the obligations of the people to the personnel of the system. On the other hand, revitalization refers to the reaffirmation and reformulation of peace pact law, which ensures the continuing effectiveness, validity, and relevance of the peace pact system to the changing world of the Kalinga. The revitalization processes inherent in peace pact celebrations have not been studied by earlier students of the Kalinga, yet close observation reveals this built-in revitalization to be a basic feature in the operation of the system.

With increasing incidences of deviance exemplified by campus disorders, community crime, civil disobedience, and interpersonal aggression, demands for law and order emanate from various segments of the general population. Concurrently, the search for effective means of assuring compliance to law becomes more fervent. Some policy-planners, legislators, policemen, judges, and educators seek new insights and greater understanding about obedience, but society's response is primarily expressed in terms of increased surveillance, detection, and punishment (which ironically may function to complicate compliance problems). In coping with disobedience, whether individual or collective, violent or nonviolent, little serious attention is paid to the origins of deviance and particularly to the antecedents of compliance. Yet it is from knowledge about the origins of obedience and the related ideas of normal populations about the legal process that the problems of deviance can best be understood and stratagems for social change most effectively realized.

Generally, studies in legal anthropology have tended to focus on the codes, written or unwritten, by which behavior is regulated in human societies and on the regularized processes by which conflicts are resolved in accordance with these codes. Thus, in considering a cross-cultural operational definition of law, Nader (1965: 6) notes that all societies have rules governing behavior, some preferential and some prescribed.

The federal government has expanded so much in recent years, both in the number of its personnel, and in the number of functions it performs, that to refer to the executive branch as if it were a homogeneous group of departments and agencies is highly misleading. On the other hand, those structures have some features in common. Many of the larger executive departments, for instance, exercise a certain quasi-judicial power—as in Boards of Contract Appeals. Many of the larger departments promulgate rules which can and do have the force of law, and may be regarded as performing a quasi-legislative function. A substantial number of government lawyers spend much of their time in litigation before these boards, the regulatory agencies, or the courts. However, for the most part, the day-to-day routine of the government lawyer is not typically of an adversary nature. Every legal decision necessarily raises the possibility that it may ultimately be attacked in some form or other; however, the decisions with which this paper will deal are not attacked so much in proceedings which are adversary as in those which are investigative. And the culmination, in general, tends to strengthen the executive, rather than the reverse, for time is on its side; the modern world is too complicated to be run by a legislature.

Only a few years ago it was customary and appropriate to begin an essay on Supreme Court efficacy by lamenting the paucity of empirical studies dealing with this problem. Such an introduction is no longer in order, since we have recently witnessed a flourishing of research on the actual consequences of judicial decisions. Both the appearance of at least one book of readings on Supreme Court impact (Becker, 1969) and the focusing of panels around this topic at political science conventions are indications of the emergence of “legal impact” as a significant field of scholarly inquiry.

Nowhere is this general tendency expressed by Brandeis more prominent than in the area of criminal law. In spite of the reasoned warnings of some writers, we are greeted by a continuous stream of books and articles from psychiatrists and psychoanalysts (and their judicial followers) with one common theme: Criminal punishment is an unscientific survival of barbarism and must be replaced by a system of individual and social therapy. To believe otherwise is to be unscientific and (if the distinction is recognized) immoral.

In Professional Ethics and Civic Morals, Emile Durkheim (1957: 50) explains that the state is the organ of a particular form of collective consciousness. This consciousness is not